Mirrors in the Desert
by Dialux
Summary: Thor assembles the Avengers for one last threat.


They are two mirrors, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers- one bright and one dark, but both glowing nonetheless.

There are people who would call Thor thick-headed- Loki has said it enough that it has percolated even through _his _mind- but there are also, strangely, a select few who realize and accept the sharpness of his vision. And if there is one thing Thor knows, it is that Iron Man and Captain America are not the opposites they and the rest of the world believe; they are…

They are…

He is not the best man with his words- in missions of diplomacy, he always let the gleam of battle fade away, in favor of his quietly vicious brother- and it shows, here on Midgard, where it seems that each word spoken hides a greater meaning.

Or perhaps that is just who he has surrounded himself with.

Nevertheless, the only way he can find to describe Stark and Rogers are through a pair of crystals his mother had once been gifted with: one silver, opalescent, and set among woven strands that never let a person touch the inside, and the other black, harsh against the velvet background but still shining softly.

If they only saw past their armor (but Thor knows, through hard-won knowledge and bitterly sought wisdom, that armor can come in all shapes and sizes, and Loki's was only the most obvious kind; Iron Man wears flashy red and gold that belies the prickly defenses underneath, and Captain America shrugs on that persona with or without his costume like a second skin when he feels threatened) the world would understand that it is both good and bad that the two hate each other.

Good, because if they two joined forces, Thor doesn't think there is a force on Midgard that can stop them. Stark's knowledge with Rogers' strength; but more than that, because they are both courageous in their own way and geniuses in their own right.

Bad, because there is evil in the world- a darkness that even he, with all his centuries of battle, can barely imagine.

What is that saying?

Yes- _united we stand, divided we fall._

How apt. Thor doesn't believe much in paltry words- but then, he knows Loki, and the Black Widow, and even his mother. He is not so much a fool to sight such weapons and ignore them, especially when it is so hard to have a proper weapon against such an attack.

What other price his centuries of pride and arrogance have ripped from him, he does not know- but more to the point, Thor does not care. He is a pragmatist as only a warrior born and bred can be; while he wishes for a kinder world he knows it is not the one he has, right now.

The evil he can sense, some days, and while once upon a time it was easily erased by sunlight and Jane, now even the brightest dawn cannot stop the prickle of unease slithering down his skin.

Loki brought vengeance down on this world that dared to pull Thor away from him, as a child would, as Thor is beginning to realize Loki _is. _How dare you do something I do not allow, he screams in Thor's dreams, how dare you care for someone I do not love?

And Loki cannot love Midgard, because he prizes power above all. From the depths of his petty envy, he had hated Midgard, the planet that had all of Asgard's faults and none of its blessings.

What beauty is there, he would ask, if he were here, in this world of momentary lives and sparser hopes?

Why does he care?

Except Thor has seen something in Midgard- and even more so, in his fellow compatriots, the aptly-named Avengers: not so much an iron will, but an unyielding pride. They are breakable and fragile, _lost creatures _and ghosts- shattered remnants of long-forgotten worlds and hopeless times. Yet when brought together, they defeat gods and monsters and nightmares. They hold depths that Thor, in his darkest moments, thinks he can scarcely imagine.

Stark and Rogers are only one among many, not shining examples but shards of glass in a gutter. They shine in contrast to their surroundings, more than they would if hidden in pristine glass cases.

There is a change on the horizon, Thor will swear to it- if it comes to that, in blood- and Midgard needs its protectors once more.

The Avengers dance the finely drawn line between heroes and villains; it is a line that is thinner than many can imagine. When people are given power for immense good, it is impossibly easy to turn that to unspeakable evil.

The only thing they can strive for is to be the best they can be- to fix the world's scars and ignore their own. When the time comes that they cannot do more, they will fall, and the next generation will rise up to heal the world in their own mangled methods.

What evil Loki unlocked, it builds on the horizon. Earth is ready for a higher form of war- and the payment for failure will be measured in the bloodied souls of innocents.

Steve Rogers and Tony Stark might be twisted, warped versions of one another; they might hate the differences that Rogers wants to see- Stark is not his father, after all, and Stark might hate Rogers- Captain America is the reason for his lack of a father. They might even hate the similarities, because they are both too stubborn to give in when a lesser man might.

But they are not, whatever else they are, fools.

So when Thor lifts Mjolnir and sends the actinic message skittering across continents, he knows they will answer.

The next morning, the first people into Thor's apartment are a star-spangled Captain America, and a freshly-painted Iron Man. The day after, when he wakes up, Black Widow and Hawkeye are sipping coffee in the kitchen, and that evening a quiet Bruce Banner knocks on the door.

Others will come if called- Spiderman and Black Panther and Scarlet Witch- but these were the first- and while they won't be the last- they deserve to know this first.

Thor closes his eyes, tips his head to the side, and takes a deep swig of his beer.

"…have you ever heard of Thanos?"

* * *

**Just a short one-shot as we wait for Avengers 2. Really looking forward to it, as well as Civil War. But this was also an attempt to address the cliche 'Tony Stark assembles the Avengers' and soon devolved into a character study on Steve and Tony with Thor background... my mind is seriously messed up.**

**But it happened, and I'm goin' with that.**

**Reviews inspire me!**

**-Dialux**


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